"What the hell?" he wondered out loud. He heard another shot, this one from the hill at the top of the field. Snow kicked up beside the toboggan.
Beside him, Vaccaro gasped. "That’s Cole!" he cried. "Tell these dumbasses not to shoot him."
"Cole?" He squinted.
Without waiting for him, Vaccaro ran toward the Jeep on which was mounted a .50 caliber machine gun. Something had jammed in the feed, but they had just cleared it and were about to shoot again.
"Stop!" he cried. "He’s one of ours!”
Vaccaro pointed at Mulholland, who nodded to confirm what Vaccaro had just said. "Hold your fire! He's one of ours!" the lieutenant shouted.
Seconds later, the toboggan slid into the road and the rider rolled off, continuing to slide along the frozen road until he crashed into the tires on a stopped truck. The toboggan sailed on into the trees.
The figure got unsteadily to his feet. It was indeed Cole. He was pointing up the hill.
"There's a Kraut sniper in the barn!"
"You heard the man," Mulholland shouted. "Light up that barn!"
The machine gun crew had warmed up on the toboggan. The barn was a much easier target. Splinters flew off the sides of the old barn. Incredibly, one of the machine gunners slumped and fell of the Jeep. The German sniper was still at work.
Not for long. The major in charge saw what was happening and shouted orders, waving frantically. The massive barrel of the tank killer swiveled around and took aim at the barn.
Von Stenger rushed the barn in time to see a toboggan sliding away down the steep hillside toward the road. It almost made him laugh to see the American sniper crouched on it, digging into the crusted snow like a paddler in a canoe, desperate for speed. A toboggan ride was for children.
He fired — and missed. The angle from the barn to the sliding toboggan was steep, and he tended to overshoot downhill targets. He chided himself for making such an amateur mistake. To his surprise, he realized that his heart was hammering inside his chest — he had, after all, expected to have to confront the hillbilly in the barn and there was a lot of adrenalin coursing through him.
As he took aim again, this time aiming much lower to compensate for the incline of the hill, he noticed the American troops on the road below. Someone fired a machine gun, churning up the snow around the toboggan, which had picked up speed and flew now across the snow. He surmised that the machine gunner had missed for the same reason he himself had — shooting uphill also required aiming lower. Of course, the machine gunner had the advantage of seeing exactly where his burst was hitting.
Von Stenger fired again, but the toboggan remained a surprisingly hard target to hit as it flew away, weaving this way and that, and shooting downhill was challenging.
Then the toboggan reached the road. He had an opportunity for one more shot. He rested the rifle more carefully against the frame of the door, took a deep breath—
Machine gun fire burst through the barn, leaving the old planks with daylight showing through like a colander. Keeping low, he put the crosshairs on the man behind the machine gun, and fired.
Von Stenger worked the bolt, preparing for another shot, when he noticed that the big muzzle of a tank destroyer was moving in his direction. Seeking him like a large, dark, angry eye.
The barn was about to be turned into kindling by a 15-pound shell traveling at nearly three thousand feet per second.
He got to his feet, ignoring the pain in his leg, and ran like hell.
CHAPTER 20
Cole rolled off the toboggan. He had grown up sliding down his share of snowy hillsides on winter days, but that was for fun. Nobody had been shooting at him. This was just about the wildest sled ride he had ever taken. Mulholland and Vaccaro helped him get unsteadily to his feet. He looked around for other familiar faces. The only one he saw was the Kid’s.
“McNulty? Any chance he made it, after all?”
Mulholland shook his head. “McNulty is dead.”
“I knew it didn’t look good for him, but Christ on a cross, I thought maybe he had a chance.” Cole sighed. “Where’s Jolie at?”
Mulholland hesitated. “She’s been captured by the Germans.”
“What?”
“She and the Kid were coming along the road, hoping to link up with us, and they ran into some Germans instead.”
Cole nodded at the Kid. “They let him go?”
“No, she told him to hide just before the Krauts saw them. She figured her own chances would be better. Once the Germans were gone, the Kid here kept going and found us with this unit—” Mulholland lowered his voice “—which is mostly made up of cooks, clerks and cripples, by the way.”
The Kid walked up, looking like he was about to cry. “It’s all my fault she got captured.”
Cole gave him a long, hard stare, but then looked away and shook his head. “It ain’t your fault, Kid. They would have shot you on sight like those poor bastards at Malmedy. You know these Krauts aren’t taking any soldiers as prisoners. At least they didn’t shoot her on the spot.”
“I’m so sorry, Cole,” Mulholland said.
“Jolie will think of something,” he said. “I reckon she always does. And if she don’t, we’ll just have to go get her.”
Having left the barn and the American unit behind, Von Stenger spent the long winter twilight making his way back to Kampfgruppe Friel. He paused to bind the gash in his leg tightly, and then started along the road. He would have preferred keeping to the woods and fields, but the deep snow would have slowed him too much. Fortunately, the dusk provided good cover.
Here in no-man's land, it could just as easily be Americans coming along the road as Germans, so he kept ready to dodge into the trees at any moment.
The wound did not slow him down much. From outward appearances, Von Stenger was an aristocrat used to the finer things in life. Somehow, he always managed to keep his uniform clean — it was as if mud and dirt would not stick to him. Those who judged him to be a soft man were soon proven wrong. Von Stenger came from the upper class, it was true, but deep in his veins ran the much older blood of the Germanic barbarians who had swarmed across the frozen Rhine to strike fear in the hearts of the Roman Legions, the Gauls, and anyone else who stood in their way.
His leg hurt, but he managed to ignore it. If anything, it served as a reminder that come what may, he would pay back this American hillbilly sniper. Von Stenger felt that his honor was at stake. How could he let a man like that escape him? No, Von Stenger would hunt him down and shoot him to prove who was the better sniper.
He soon heard the whine of an oncoming engine struggling through the snow and half-frozen mud. He slipped between the white-coated tree trunks and disappeared. Only when he saw that it was a German half track did he step back out on the road. It turned out to be a scout patrol that had been spying on the American column just behind them. They gave him a ride back to the Kampfgruppe.
"Kurt," Friel said with obvious delight upon seeing him. "I thought we had lost you."
"Come now," Von Stenger said, unable to hide a smile. "You give those American snipers too much credit."
"That is good to hear," Friel said. The Obersturmbannführer looked exhausted — clearly he had not slept in days as he exhorted his men forward. In some men, the lack of sleep would have made them look older, but exhaustion had the opposite effect on Friel. He wasn't even thirty yet, and at the moment he looked very boyish. "I can do without them picking us off. Now, how are you at shooting down planes? If this weather clears, we will have a lot more to worry about than a few pesky snipers."
"I am afraid a rifle is not much use against an airplane. Might I suggest using the Wirbelwind anti-aircraft guns? The planes will come in low."